All posts in category Very Beginner Series

* Occasional posts will contain how-tos and/or hints for VERY new users of iPads, iPhones or Kindles. All new users welcome! Non-tech speak, not terribly detailed, just basic device-enhancing goodness. All part of this Very Beginner Series.

Please share with any beginners (Mom? Dad? Grandma?) in your life.*

I received a message from a reader today asking how to delete an app. I can’t believe that I neglected to include such a basic “how to” on this blog! Let me correct that, right now. :)

Any new iPhone/iPad user will soon find themselves loaded with apps. While some of those apps will be useful, you will probably find that others are not-so-good and you would like to get them OFF of your device. It’s very easy to do.

How to delete an app from your iPhone or iPad:

Hold your finger on the app that you want to remove from your device.

It will start to wiggle, and you will see an “x” in the corner of the icon.

Tap on the “x” and you will be given a message that asks if you are sure that you want to delete this app.

Once you tap “delete”, the app disappears. Poof!

FYI … it’s not gone forever. You bought it. You own it. If you ever want it back, just return to the iTunes store and download it again. Apple will remember that you already bought it, so you will download it without charge.

Over the last several years, “throwback Thursday” has become quite popular.

Although it is really supposed to be about nostalgia (like old photos), I thought I’d stretch the point, and occasionally post an old (but updated!) “how to” on Thursdays, for the benefit of the many new-device-users who have joined our blog.

* Occasional posts will contain how-tos and/or hints for VERY new users of iPads, iPhones or Kindles. All new users welcome! Non-tech speak, not terribly detailed, just basic device-enhancing goodness. All part of this Very Beginner Series.

Please share with any beginners (Mom? Dad? Grandma?) in your life.*

Remember the digital picture frames that were so popular several years ago? If you have an iPad, you may choose to leave that digital frame in the drawer because your iPad is an awesome picture frame. Better, probably, than the dedicated version you have (had) and a LOT more fun.

When you first take your iPad out of the box, one of the Apps you will see on the home screen is called Photos and it shows on your screen as a daisy with colorful petals. We are going to make our slideshow with this native App (although there are lots of others available in the App Store).

Once you have about a dozen photos on your iPad, you are ready to enjoy the show. We will get it started, and look at several options along the way.

Touch the photos app to open it. Now tap any photo, from any collection. (Once you understand how to make a slideshow, you can group your photos accordingly.)

Look down at the bottom left of the screen. You’ll see a box with an arrow pointing up. This is your “action” box.

Tap on this action box, and you’ll be presented with several choices of “actions.” One of these choices will be: Slideshow.

Select “slideshow” and you will get a new menu with several choices.

Touch “transitions” and you will get several options: dissolve, cube, ripple, wipe across, wipe down and origami. Choose any one of these for now, you can come back and change it later.

Your next option is “Play Music”. Slide this to “on”. When you touch “music” you will be presented with all the music that you have on your iPad. Select something that you would like to listen to while you watch your pictures.

Once you have made these choices, touch “Start Slideshow” and sit back to enjoy the show. At any point if you want to stop it, just tap the screen.

But you’re not done yet! There are a few other tweaks that you can do. Open Settings > Photos. Notice there are several setting choices for your slideshow. You can change the number of seconds that each slide stays on the screen, choose to repeat photographs, and opt to have the photos shuffled as they are viewed.

Occasional posts will contain how-tos and/or hints for VERY new users of iPads, iPhones or Kindles. All new users welcome! Non-tech speak, not terribly detailed, just basic device-enhancing goodness. All part of this Very Beginner Series. Please share with any beginners (Mom? Dad? Grandma?) in your life.

Over the last several years, “throwback Thursday” has become quite popular.

Although it is really supposed to be about nostalgia (like old photos), I thought I’d stretch the point, and occasionally post an old “how to” on Thursdays, for the benefit of the many new-device-users who have joined our blog.

How to type in Caps:

When you first get your new iPhone or iPad, one of the first things you’ll do is spend some time typing on the keyboard. You’ll quickly learn to tap the up-arrow when you want a capital letter.

But what if you want to type in ALL caps? You do not need to tap the arrow every single time ….

Just DOUBLE-TAP the up-arrow, and it will darken. Now every letter you type will BE A CAPITAL LETTER.

When you are done cap-typing, just touch the up-arrow again, and you’ll turn off your caps.

Occasional posts will contain how-tos and/or hints for VERY new users of iPads, iPhones or Kindles. All new users welcome! Non-tech speak, not terribly detailed, just basic device-enhancing goodness. All part of this Very Beginner Series. Please share with any beginners (Mom? Dad? Grandma?) in your life.

Recently one of the readers of this blog asked me about this, and I realized that there are probably other new users who also are unaware of how to switch the perspective for your camera. After all, when you FIRST get a new device, everything is new to you, even the most basic. And THAT is the purpose of this VERY Beginner series….. :)

How to switch the perspective of your camera, so that you can take a picture of yourself (a selfie) :

Open your Camera app

Look to the TOP of the screen. You will see an icon that looks like the outline of a camera with two whirly arrows in it.

Tap that icon, and the camera will switch it’s direction, and take a picture of you. Just tap the same icon to switch it back.

Occasional posts will contain how-tos and/or hints for VERY new users of iPads, iPhones or Kindles. All new users welcome! Non-tech speak, not terribly detailed, just basic device-enhancing goodness. All part of this Very Beginner Series. Please share with any beginners (Mom? Dad? Grandma?) in your life.

* Occasional posts will contain how-tos and/or hints for VERY new users of iPads, iPhones or Kindles. All new users welcome! Non-tech speak, not terribly detailed, just basic device-enhancing goodness. All part of this Very Beginner Series.

Please share with any beginners (Mom? Dad? Grandma?) in your life.*

The other evening I was having dinner with a friend, a new iPhone user, and she wanted to show me a few pictures …. but she had to find them first. These photos had been sent to her in text messages, and she was going back through the messages to find the photos.

And so, as I watched her scroll back through her messages, the blogging bell went off in my head. “This should be a beginner post!” So here we go.

Here is how you save a photo that you receive in a text message:

Tap on the photo or the arrow area to make the photo larger.

Once you see the larger photo, tap the action arrow up at the top of the phone.

A new screen will pop up with all sorts of choices. Select “save to camera roll”.

That’s all there is.

Now when you want to look back at the photos that you received, just go to your Photos app (the sunflower) and select “camera roll”. The newly saved photos will be there at the end of the photo page.

I hate to interrupt this blog, but interrupt I must, and I’m hanging up the “be back soon” sign for now.

This break is not because I am tired, or have run out of things to talk about. (There is ALWAYS more stuff to talk about!) I must take a break because I will not have access to the internet for a while.

This also means that I will not be able to read blogs or to comment on the blogs that I so enjoy following. Please understand that lack of responses from me is only because, well, I’m not here. :)

In the meantime, if you are a new follower, this will give you a chance to catch up.

*Occasional posts will contain how-tos and/or hints for VERY new users of iPads, iPhones or Kindles. All new users welcome! Non-tech speak, not terribly detailed, just basic device-enhancing goodness. All part of this Very Beginner Series. Please share with any beginners (Mom? Dad? Grandma?) in your life.*

Part of the fun of having an iPhone or an iPad is gathering apps. All kinds of apps. Game apps, map apps, video apps, recipe apps, productivity apps, music apps.

And if you have good apps, (and you probably do), the developers keep working on them. They keep improving them. The developers tweak their work, making their apps better all the time. They update them so that they work best with the current operating system, to correct bugs that users uncover, and to add new features.

This is all great news for you, the user, because it means that the apps you use just keep getting better. The trick, however, is that you have to remember to update your apps. :)

There are two basic ways to update. One is through the computer and iTunes, the other is directly on your device.

For the purpose of this post, we are going to look at updating your apps directly on your device. (Syncing to iTunes will be a topic for another day.)

How to update your apps on your iPhone or iPad:

Find the App Store app on your iPhone or iPad.

If you have any updates, you will see a number on it. This tells you how many apps you have to update.

Tap on the App store icon.

Now look down at the bottom of the screen, and you’ll see that number again, right beside the word “updates”.

Tap on “Updates”

You will be shown a list of all the updates that are available to you.

Next to each one, there is an “update” spot to touch OR you can look to the top of the screen and tap on “update all”

Gradually, one by one, your apps will update.

Try to remember to do this periodically.

If the number gets too high, you can overwhelm your device and it might freeze (it’s not supposed to freeze, but it has happened).

You are less likely to have a problem if you update the apps in smaller batches, every few days or so.

*Occasional posts will contain how-tos and/or hints for VERY new users of iPads, iPhones or Kindles. All new users welcome! Non-tech speak, not terribly detailed, just basic device-enhancing goodness. All part of this Very Beginner Series. Please share with any beginners (Mom? Dad? Grandma?) in your life.*

I don’t get a lot of voice mail. My phone is always with me, and I usually answer it (unless I’m driving, of course!)

So when I do get a voice mail, I fumble. I sometimes forget if I should touch “here” or “here”.

Let’s learn and remember how to do this very basic task.

Here is how to listen to your voice mail:

Touch the green phone icon, and look down at the bottom of the screen.

There you will see ‘voice mail’ on the far right. Tap on ‘voice mail’.

Your voice mail messages will appear.

Tap on the LEFT side of the person’s name. There is a hidden “play” button, there.

(If you tap on the RIGHT side of the screen, you will go to the person’s contact page.)